


Forgiveness . . . and Other Lies My Lover Told Me

by beetle



Category: Deadpool (2016), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Crazy Peter, Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Deadpool Thought Boxes, Drugged Drink, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Mentions of Kingpin, No actual non-con happens in this fic, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, POV Bruce Banner, POV Wade Wilson, Peter Parker is an Avenger, Protective Wade, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Science Husbands, Seriously the non-con elements on only in memories, Spideypool - Freeform, Suicidal Peter, Wade Saves Peter, Wade's Psyche Heals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 09:47:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8244853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: In which, well, Peter and Wade make some small, but downright not-smart choices, and bad things happen. But they still love each other . . . and that does count for something. How much of something is entirely up to them. Spideypool with a small side-order of Science Husbands and random Clint Barton. Full prompts in end notes.Notes/Warnings: AU, set post Spider-Man: Homecoming and Deadpool by several years. TRIGGER WARNINGS for semi-homophobic language; able-ist language; mental health issues; poor coping mechanisms; and drugging and non-con involving one of the main pairing, but not both. The person who's assaulted talks about the assault in non-graphic terms but this is STRICTLY the aftermath of that.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gwencampbell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwencampbell/gifts).



[White]

{Yellow}

 

“Spider-Man?”

 

Peter doesn’t even seem to hear me the first few times I call him by his alias.

 

It’s not till I kneel in front of his still, slumped, tailor-style figure, and lean in close to him and whisper: “Petey? Baby Boy?” that he shudders. That his unblinking, thousand-yard stare shifts a little. Is reeled in, till he blinks rapidly five or six times, then those cloudy, topaz eyes of his, big, wide, and somehow . . . shattered, like they’re made of the very crystal they resemble . . . drift up to me, vacant and confused in his pretty, too-pale, too-thin face.

 

He blinks again and takes a breath that hitches on its way in, and shakes and shudders on its way back out. “W-Wade?” he asks in a hoarse, cracking whisper. Dry, like he hasn’t had water or anything else to wet his whistle in days. Maybe he _hasn’t_. I’m ashamed to admit to myself that I just don’t know. After he disappeared Friday night, I’ve been in such a tizzy trying to find him—hoping and praying that whatever mental and emotional _undoing_ that’s been happening to him hasn’t finally swallowed him _whole_ , leaving no trace behind for me to save, or even _mourn_ —I haven’t spared a thought for anything beyond how fragile and confused his mental state has been. It hasn’t occurred to me until just now that he’s maybe gotten bad enough that he hasn’t even been _eating_.

 

Maybe he hasn’t even been feeling the _urge_ , the _instinct_ to eat, anymore.

 

But then, having even the most basic of instincts seems to be a big problem for my own personal hero, lately. Who knows who’s seen him like this? Who knows _how long_ he’s been crouching on this rooftop in his spidey-suit—why’d he even put it _on_ after six months?—without his mask, in the _bone-numbing_ cold? In the fucking _snow_? His lips are blueish, chapped, and cracked, with old,dried blood in those cracks. His too-long—shoulder-length—hair is damp, either from snow or sweat, and greasy, from not being washed in who knows how many days—and for me, this behavior from the guy who’d actually gotten _me_ back into the habit of bathing at least semi-regularly, by hook and by crook, is somehow the most shocking thing of all . . . at least since finding him ten minutes ago—and he smells intense, bordering on bad.

 

Fuck, and the spidey-suit is torn in places and patches, as if it’s gotten snagged more times than could be accounted for by his usual wall-crawling. Has he been fighting? Defending himself? Against who? Or _what_?

 

Even now, after all this time, the Amazing Spider-Man still has enemies, I’d imagine. . . .

 

I am . . . horrified. Broken. Lost.

 

And I know that for all that, I’m still not as bad off as my poor, sweet _Peter_.

 

But at least . . . at least he’s not bleeding anywhere I can see. Nothing more than superficial scratches on his visible skin and torn, but healing fingers. Mostly around his broken, dirty fingernails. No bruises or blood or broken skin on his _knuckles_ , though.

 

He’s been _climbing_ , but _not_ fighting.

 

“Heyya, Baby Boy . . . it’s ol’ Wade! And boy, _howdy_ —did ya have me _worried_ the past four days!” I grin my biggest grin, hoping he’ll be able to tell despite my mask. I’m not certain that taking it off will do more than confuse him, at this point. He’s seen me more with it on than off, anyway. “I was runnin’ around like a chicken with its head cut off!”

 

He blinks up at me, squinting a little before sneezing, then sniffling, wiping his nose absently on the back of his hand. Something else he never used to do. He always used to have a travel-pack of Kleenex or at least a take-out napkin squirreled away on his person. Even when we patrolled together.

 

That was back before Freddie Mosca, though . . . before everything went to shit and fell apart.

 

“I’m sorry, Wade,” Peter says softly, easily, but as if he doesn’t quite understand even the _concept_ of regret or why he might feel it. As if he’s only saying it because he doesn’t like the idea of _me_ being unhappy. His next blink is several _long_ seconds in coming and slow when it finally arrives. He shivers immediately after, his unfocused, almost dreamy eyes drifting over my shoulder, to the horizon and its setting sun. He’s been staring into it for who knows how long? At least since just before _I_ showed up.

 

Maybe since he crawled up to this place where I can only hope he’s felt _safe_ , if not warm and loved. This place where—I refuse to admit to myself—he most likely crawled off to to _die_. Alone, and far from the person who failed him so completely and continuously. . . .

 

“Wade?” He’s not even _squinting_ at that bright, violent, blood-orange sunset . . . just staring blankly into it with wide, empty eyes. It’s really as if the most basic instincts have fled, leaving him _tabula rasa_.

 

“Yeah, buddy?” My voice is croaking and harsh, even for me, traveling, as it does, around my heart, to emerge into the frozen air.

 

“’M cold.”

 

“Well, shucks! Can’t let _that_ stand, can we? C’mon, Baby Boy . . . let’s get you someplace a little less . . . outdoors, huh? Sound like a plan?”

 

Still grinning, I reach out my left hand to him, nice and slow. Sometimes . . . right after Freddie Mosca . . . sudden motions had caused panic attacks that'd lead to mercifully brief fugue-states—something I’d never even heard of till Googling Peter’s symptoms—and disorientation that'd lasted for hours.

 

Then for days.

 

Then . . . then it just got easier to think in terms of how short his briefer and briefer periods of _lucidity_ steadily got. It became easier to think of the person I was taking care of more and more, as a series of fugue-states and spells of disorientation . . . and not as _Peter Benjamin Parker_ , the smartest, sharpest, cleverest, most rock-solid person I’d ever met.

 

 _That_ person is . . . as time goes on . . . less and less likely to ever come back. To ever be _fixable_ by me or anyone. Not that I _trust_ anyone, even his Avenger buddies to handle him, now. Their insistence and expectations would only frighten him . . . would only make him miserable, as well as broken.

 

Peter frowns at the sunset, then his gaze drifts back to me. To my gloved hand, which is freezing, _despite_ the damn glove. How the hell has _he_ survived out here for _four days_?

 

And it’s that question . . . that final straw that breaks me _for_ _real_. Shatters me like Peter was shattered almost six months ago. My hand drops slowly, shaking as if palsied, to my side and I bow my head, meaning only to take a moment to collect myself. But before long, I’m gasping in great gusts of frigid air as tears run down my face and I scream. Not aloud, but into the vast, echoing silence of _my_ once-fractured mind.

 

I wish White was _still_ _here_ , to whisper what to do next and how to best go about doing it.

 

I wish _Yellow_ was still here, to cheer me on and tell me that one day, Peter would somehow _unbreak_ himself.

 

I wish. . . .

 

I laugh, and it rattles with tears and phlegm. Once upon a time, I’d have given _anything_ to see the back end of my Boxes . . . but over the past several months, I’ve had more than one occasion to wish for their company. For their determination. For their _distraction_ , if nothing else. I’m not used to the silence . . . either inside my head or out of it. _Peter_ almost _never_ speaks, anymore. Almost never makes any noise at all except when he’s having nightmares, from which he wakes screaming . . . only for that scream to be cut off the moment what passes for his consciousness these days is achieved.

 

Mostly, he sits wakeful, blinking and staring. Sometimes at me. Sometimes at the walls of the apartment in Parkchester—the first after a series of motels and squats—I moved us to before the weather changed. He’ll listen to the radio, but television frightens him. He’ll even do most necessary things for himself: bathroom, eating (if I put food in front of him), and even bathing and dressing, if he’s having a good day.

 

But those are getting rarer and rarer.

 

 _He’s not,_ I realize finally, though I’d been having the realization for months, slowly and steadily, like a time-lapse avalanche, _ever going to get better than this. He’ll only get worse and worse, till maybe he falls down a flight of stairs and breaks his neck. He’ll_ never _be better than this on his own. Never with just_ me _to help him. I have to go to the Avengers. If not the rest, then Widow and Barton . . . I can trust them. And Banner, too. All three of them know what it’s like . . . they know what it is to be_ unmade _and to watch the person you love most quietly_ lose _themselves._

 

I don’t even realize I’m sobbing until my voice catches in my throat on a long, pathetic moan.

 

I sniffle and snort back snot, but my nose won’t stop running because it’s below freezing out here by a wide margin. Almost Regina-cold, and for New York City? That’s pretty damn scary.

 

“Fuckin’ climate change,” I mutter out loud, laughing a little, because it reminds me of Yellow. I actually giggle before continuing the thought in the same snide tone. “Oh, but it’s just a _theory_ , right, asshats?”

 

“One th-that eighty-f-four percent of reputable scientists s-subscribe to,” Peter’s shaking voice says between the chattering of his mossy teeth. I freeze—in every sense of the word—in place instantly, and a few seconds after he falls silent, a heavy, cold hand, like icy marble, settles on my bowed head. “At wh-what point is a th-theory accepted as likely to be _f-fact_ , if not when it s-surpasses the mark of three-quarters of the target p-population’s acceptance?”

 

I shudder hard, muttering: “Fuck!” but I’m afraid to move and look up. Afraid that I’m going nuts again. Nutser than I’ve  _ever_ been, even when White and Yellow were running rough-shod over me in those early, post-Weapon X days.

 

“Wade?”

 

Same voice as just a couple minutes ago, but somehow . . . clearer in its questioning confusion. Sad, where Peter’s most recent emotional range had hovered between absent-minded anxiety and intense, outright fright. And, sometimes, flashes of a servile need to keep _me_ —his caretaker—happy with him.

 

“Jesus . . . _Wade_. . . .” that sadder, but stronger voice husks around a deep cough that rattles in a way I really don’t like. “What . . . what’s goin’ on? Why’m I so cold? Where _are_ we? Why . . . what _day_ is it?”

 

At last, I’m released. Able to move, though I only do so slowly and tentatively. Shifting just enough to see Peter, small, thin, pale, _shivering_ , red about the cheeks and nose with windburn, messy, grown-out, dirty hair hanging in his face like curtains and almost obscuring the now _clear_ topaz of his eyes, which seem to not be foggy and desperately confused, anymore. No, now they’re a very _focused_ sort of confused. A confused that _understands_ its confusion and how to end it.

 

 _Peter Parker’s_ eyes flash weakly at me as he waits for his answers. I open my mouth to speak, but all that comes out is another sob. For a moment, Peter looks annoyed and impatient in a way I haven’t seen in _months_. _Aware_ annoyance. Aware _impatience_. Then that look is replaced with one of concern and consideration as I reach for his hand and pull it to my cheek. Then down to my mask-covered mouth to kiss it.

 

“Petey, _baby_ ,” is all I can hitch and hiccup, my eyes squinched shut to stop the tears that are blurring my vision of him.

 

Oh, so slowly, Peter’s hand shifts till its cupping my face again, his thumb stiffly stroking my cheek through the mask. I open my eyes and stare into his tear-blurry face. His brow is furrowed and his eyes are _so_ alert. So very _present_ , that another sob escapes me. “It’s been . . . _God_ , baby, it’s been _so_ _long_!”

 

“How . . . how long have I been . . . _gone_?” he asks in a brave, but shaking and pained voice. A tear runs sluggishly down his left cheek and when he blinks, more follow from both eyes. “What _day_ is it?”

 

“Wh-what’s the last day you remember?” I answer his question with a question. Peter’s eyes close for a few seconds.

 

“Friday, June 17th. Approximately seven thirty p.m.,” he says, his eyes opening once more. I let out a held breath when they’re still aware and alert and sharp.

 

“Wow . . . talk about a date that’ll live in infamy. It’s been. . . .” I sigh, reaching out slowly again, this time to take his other hand. Peter glances down at _my_ hand, but doesn’t flinch away, like he might've done even six days ago, let alone six months. Instead, he turns his hand so that he can link his fingers with mine. When his gaze ticks up to mine again, it’s as keen as it ever was, but shining with an overwhelming trust and vulnerability that forces another sob out of me. Though, at the last second, I try to turn it into a laugh. “Well, it’s November 21 st, Baby Boy! Not even _Christmas_ , yet!”

 

“ _November_ 21 st?” Peter frowns a bit, his eyelashes fluttering automatically as his eyes go vague for exactly two seconds while he does the math. I’ve seen him do even eerier, faster mental gymnastics than this, but never has it been more breath-taking than _this_ moment, when Peter’s lashes stop fluttering and he sighs more irritably than worriedly. “It’s a _Monday_ , then,” he says in a voice that’s soft with weariness and shallow breaths. When I nod once, he shakes his head sadly. “I fucking _hate_ Mondays, Wade.”

 

“I dunno,” I snort out on a sniffling giggle, grinning again, bigger than my entire face, it feels like. “Suddenly, Mondays ain’t so bad, anymore.”

 

Peter snorts, too, and shudders. “So, _why_ am I . . . why am I _missing time_ , Wade? And so much of it? What . . . what _happened_ to me?”

 

I shake my head incredulously. “Peter, it’s . . . ah, fuck. I could tell ya the plain, unvarnished truth, if ya _want_. If ya absolutely _demand_ it of me . . . or I could lie to ya. For now, at least. Which do ya want?”

 

Peter searches my eyes intently, piercingly. “Lie to me,” he whispers decisively. “For now.”

 

“I love you,” I eventually reply, helpless as a wet kitten in these fragile, unexpected moments. Peter’s eyes widen in mute heart-break. It takes less than a second for me to realize how that long-time-coming declaration sounds, on the heels of Peter’s request, and I’m _real_ quick to stammer out a clarification. “Ah, Jesus- _fuck_ , what I mean is . . . _I love you, Peter Parker_ , and aside from that, I’ll lie to you, if you want. If I _have_ to. I’ll lie my pert and perky _buttocks_ _off_.”

 

Peter blinks and more tears fall, but that look of raw heart-break is leaving his expressive eyes and stricken face. He even smiles. I return the smile and clear my throat.

 

“So, yeah. You and the, uh, other Avenger-types were fightin’ the Chitauri—”

 

“ _Again_?” Peter wrinkles his nose and plays along. I want nothing more than to kiss those adorable wrinkles.

 

“Yep. Again,” I agree brightly. “And some of them bastards musta got in some lucky shots with their shocky, little boom-sticks, because by the time _yours truly_ arrives on the scene, you, Falcon, and Barnes are out _cold_ in a dead-end of wrecked cars and shit, with Romanov, Barton, Cap, and Mean Green holding your positions. . . .”

 

Peter widens his already wide eyes in fake-wonder. “ _No_!”

 

“ _Yes_!” I fake-preen, even though it all feels hollow and wrong. The way it never used to. “Lucky for _you guys_ , ol’ Wade stepped in and saved the day . . . as per-fucking-usual.”

 

#

 

Three days later, I’m almost in the same boat I’d been in for six months prior:

 

“He’s not getting better than this,” I mutter to myself out loud, because it reminds me of White, who I miss so badly, and not just for his unshakable confidence and strangely English accent. Sighing, I place my hand gently, palm-side up, on Peter’s hot, damp forehead. Fever's worse, if anything.

 

Peter's eyes flutter open and roll to me. He takes yet another rattling, hoarse breath that ends in a cough that’s trying to be a smile.

 

“You don’t . . . you must be hot wearing that mask, all the time, DP,” he exhales in a tired whisper, trying to focus his reddened eyes on my lenses. I shrug.

 

“I’m hot, no matter _what_ I wear, Petey-pie. Just the perils of being Canada’s sexiest export since Bryan Adams.” I flex the guns for him. They’re not as impressive in my off-white Henley as they are in the red leather suit, but Peter smiles anyway. Snorts, rolling his eyes, then moaning almost inaudibly.

 

When he finally manages to get his eyes back open and semi-focused again, he seems sad. “I . . . I miss your _face_ , Wade.”

 

I flush, and not just because I have the heat in the apartment cranked up to eleven . . . _million_ . . . while I’m wearing a leather mask. “Eh. Bad enough you’ve probably got the fuckin’ _Consumption_. Ya don’t need _my_ ugly mug scarin’ the shit outta ya every time ya open those pretty eyes, Baby Boy.”

 

“Hmm.” Peter smiles again, his pinkish-grey tongue coming out to swipe his dry, still-cracked lips. “You’ve _never_ scared me, DP, except for your once nonexistent ideas about hygiene. Other than _that_ . . . heh, plus, I think you’re a very handsome man.”

 

I roll my eyes. “Oh, shit. The fever’s eating his brain,” I mutter, just loud enough for him to hear. The tired, breathless giggle this occasions is more than worth the price of admission. I chuckle, too.

 

“But, hear me out,” Peter chuffs, already almost at the end of his voice, for the next little while. He coughs a bit, to clear his throat. “You have such bright, intelligent dark eyes,  _striking_ bone structure, all perfect, prominent angles: aquiline nose, square jaw, cleft chin . . . and the _cheekbones_ . . . plus, there’s the matter of your _mouth_. . . .”

 

“And the scars. Don’t forget _that_ shit, Baby Boy,” I’m quick to say. Then I frown and rewind the convo. “Wait— _what_ _about_ my mouth?”

 

Peter’s smile is nearly coy. “Meh. Can’t trust what _I_ say, can you? Fever’s eating my brain, after all. . . .”

 

“Ah, fuckin’— _c’mon_ , Petey! Ya can’t just say that there’s a matter of my damn mouth and then just leave it at that! That’s just plain cruel!” I complain and Peter hums again, eyes slowly slipping shut for a few moments. Then they open wide and clear and sharp. Measuring.

 

“Fine,” he says—barely. It’s more of a huff than a sound. “Come closer so I can whisper it to you. My voice is going again.”

 

So I do. Brow furrowed, I lean closer to Peter, holding his gaze till the last moment before I turn my head so he can whisper in my ear. Rather, at my mask in the approximate spot where my ear is.

 

 _Dingus_ , I call myself, since Yellow isn’t there to do it for me. Then I’m pushing up my mask to just above my ears as I start to turn my head. But Peter is, even though he’s sick, faster than anyone with pneumonia has a right to be. His hand is suddenly cupping my jaw and turning it to face him again. And before I can protest or even _think_ _about_ protesting, his dry, cracked, too-warm lips have pressed against my chin for a few seconds, before they’re gone. I blink and open my mouth to speak, and that’s when Peter’s mouth slots firmly against _mine_ for what seems like _eons_.

 

Suddenly, he moans, his lips parting just enough for his tongue to tease _my_ lips pretty playfully for a guy on what might be his deathbed.

 

And with that thought, I’m groaning and pulling away. “ _Peter, baby-baby-baby_ ,” I start to say, as I sit up. But Peter bobs up after me, sealing our mouths together with singular determination. His tongue invades my open mouth, redolent of cherry cough medicine—the kind with the codeine in it . . . ‘cause I know doctors who write scripts and don’t ask questions—and minty throat-spray. It’s a weird combination of tastes, not necessarily pleasant, but for a little while, anyway, I’m kissing Peter back, one hand coming up to cup his face like he’s cupping mine, still. The other settles on his shoulder, pushing him back down to the bed. He makes a whiny, unhappy little noise that subsides when he realizes I’m following him down, not pushing him away.

 

By the time Peter loses consciousness, between one kiss and the next—the hand on my face falling back to our bed as his other hand, which’d been curled tightly, possessively on my bicep, also slips away—I’m breathless and hard and lying in bed with him. We’re facing each other, only the smallest, most necessary bit of distance between us, as it’s been for the six months since Freddie Mosca, minus those days Peter had disappeared. And the days since I’d found him, sick and filthy, on a rooftop in the Bronx.

 

I brush my fingers down his damp, feverish, peach-fuzz covered cheek, to his jaw, then down to the hollow in his throat where his pulse seems to race.

 

If he was anyone else but _Spider-Man_ , I know, he’d have been dead a hundred times over in the past half a year. Though I’m certain that this pneumonia might actually _succeed_ where exposure, starvation, and imminent danger have failed.

 

I lean my forehead against Peter’s over-warm one, and weep silently, doing my best not to shake and shudder, so as not to wake him. And somehow, for the first time in about eight days—irony of ironies, that _particular_ number—I fall asleep.

 

It’s several hours later, but not yet dawn, when I’m awoken by moans.

 

I bolt upright, stifling hot and yanking off my damn mask, drenched in sweat that’s not entirely mine.

 

In my arms still, despite me bolting up, Peter is shivering and muttering to himself, his eyes sunk in grey-brown hollows. One of his heated, sweaty hands is on my shoulder and he’s grimacing up at me apologetically.

 

“There’s . . . that handsome face. Didn’t . . . didn’t mean to . . . wake you . . . DP,” he husks out breathlessly, his eyes closing. I can feel the _heat_ baking off him like lying on blacktop at midday in an Arizona summer. His skin is almost too hot to comfortably touch. But, if anything, I hold him closer.

 

“Fuck, Petey. You can wake me up _anytime_ , gorgeous,” I mumble, tilting his face up toward mine, kissing his forehead, the narrow bridge of his nose, then the soft separation of his cracked lips. Maybe it’s my state of mind, but it’s quite literally the best, most perfect kiss of my entire life, even though Peter’s too weak to really kiss me back. “ _C’mon, Petey_ , you’re alright. You’re _alright_.”

 

“Kinda _not_ , Wade,” he breathes, on the back of an exhausted, but serene laugh. “But I’m glad. . . .”

 

“ _Glad_? About _what_ , Baby Boy?” His lips barely pucker as I kiss the words onto them, then gently, tenderly, carefully suck the cough medicine-sweetness from the lower one. “What in _fuck_ is there to be glad about, _now_?”

 

“Mmm,” he sighs happily— _happily_ , if you can believe that—his lashes fluttering as if he’s trying to open his eyes . . . then they stop and he sighs again, both apologetic and accepting. “Glad I . . . got to see your _face_ again, before. . . .”

 

“Before?” I nuzzle his nose and burning-up cheek reassuringly, and I’m aiming for another kiss as I realize what he means by _before_. Going cold despite the desperate amounts of fever-heat he’s putting out, I sit back just enough to see his face, and. . . .

 

“ _Petey_?!”

 

The hand that’d been on my shoulder falls away again, even more limply than it had earlier, and in my arms . . . in my arms, Peter’s too-thin body is a dead-weight.

 

A dead, rapidly-cooling weight.

 

“No-no-no!” I mutter, gathering him close in my arms and holding him way too tight. Unlike how he’d felt moments ago, now, he seems feather-light as I whip blankets away from his no longer shivering form. His head lolls and his face is the color of ancient parchment or new cheese. His sweat-damp hair, which hadn’t been cut since before the Freddie Mosca incident, is for once not obscuring his closed eyes, but hanging in a thick, sable fall that would brush just past his slim shoulders, were he upright. . . .

 

Laying him gently on our bed, I jump up and pace to the closet, then back to the bed, my mind a howling, white noise din of non-thoughts and terror. I stare down at Peter's too-still form, in its red-plaid pajama bottoms and Captain America t-shirt. Even now, at this terrible moment, he's so incredibly beautiful, he takes my damn breath away.

 

I grab my cellphone from our dresser, already dialing some number or other, then stalk back to the bed and the boy lying so still in it.

 

Moments later Peter, in my arms and covered in blankets, my cellphone in the slight, concave curve of his unmoving body, I storm out of the barely-furnished bedroom, my heart beating in my ears like a marching band. I don't even make it across the brief living room to the front door before it seems like I blink, and . . . everything _shifts_ in that momentary darkness. I’m suddenly up on another roof, kneeling in half a foot of snow, Peter still in my arms, cool as marble once more and more still than the void between galaxies. I, however, am neither cool nor still, but burning from the inside out and shaking. On the snow in front of me is my cellphone. It’s on speaker and a familiar voice is saying: “. . . hold on, Wade . . . we’re almost there, just . . . stay on the line and keep talking so we can trace the call and narrow down your Twenty, okay?”

 

“Yeah,” I say, confused because . . . _what_? Had time just . . . skipped? How had I lost a chunk of it? Did Peter’s crazy leave him at the moment of death and jump to me? Am _I_ experiencing fugue-states, now? _Is this what the past six months has_ been like _, for my boy?_ “Okay. I hear ya, Mean Green.”

 

“Good, that’s . . . good,” Bruce says in his perpetually worried, perpetually _kind_ voice. My phone throws off enough heat even in call-mode that it’s sinking in the snow. And Peter’s so cool in my arms. Almost cold. “Is Peter still unconscious?”

 

“I’m pretty sure Petey’s d-dead, Doc,” I say calmly, unaware that I’m weeping until the night sky above me begins to blur, the stars smearing like we’re all in hyper-drive. “My Baby Boy’s . . . gone.”

 

For an endless few moments, Bruce doesn’t speak. When he does, finally, his voice is even more kind and calm. “Now, Wade . . . you’re not a doctor,” he says gently, and I snort.

 

“Nah, but I’ve been around a lotta unalive people. Most of ‘em by my own hand. I know my business.”

 

Another lengthy silence, during which I stare at the sky. At the stars. At one star that’s bigger and brighter than the others. And getting closer.

 

 _Fast_.

 

“We’ll be touching down in thirty,” another voice says from the phone, and it, too, is familiar, though slightly distant, as if the speaker isn’t facing the phone or comm or whatever.

 

“Barton?” I ask numbly, surprised for some reason.

 

“That’s a big ten-four, Wade. Don’t go disappearing on us before we can _help_ you and Peter, this time. We’ve been kinda frantic for six months, now,” he says in his mild, friendly, completely lacking in judgments or accusations-voice. I experience a moment of missing him and Bruce and even _Romanov_ keenly.

 

Hell, at this point, I’d even kiss that asshole _Stark_ square on the mouth.

 

“Didn’t _plan_ on disappearin’, Barton, it just . . . it _happened_. I hadda . . . I hadda _protect_ him,” I tell the approaching light in the sky. It’s still a ways off, but it’s getting here pretty fast. I can tell it’s a quinjet. Of _course_ it is. "Guess I panicked."

 

“I understand, Wade,” Barton says in that same non-judgmental voice, and somehow refrains from asking how that _protecting Peter-thing_ is going, so far. “We _all_ do. Just . . . ya can’t do this sorta thing on your own, ya know?”

 

I _don’t_ know. Not really. I have _no_ idea what _Barton and Bruce_ know, now. What I’d told them when I went all fugue-y. All I know for sure is . . . my Baby Boy’s _still_ and hasn’t moved in far too long.

 

“Petey,” I murmur, laying him down on the snow and looking into his still, white face. There’s a hint of a smile on his lips and, as the quinjet touches down in the exact center of the roof, Bruce already hopping out of it and running toward us, I tug the blankets around Peter closer, then lean down and press a kiss to his chilly mouth. I can’t taste any sweetness anymore: cold medicine, throat-spray, or otherwise. I can’t taste anything but the chill of death.

 

“I love you,” I tell Peter as Bruce drops to his knees in the snow, right next to me. He’s got some sort of _huge-ass_ med-kit and he’s wearing an earpiece—one presumes to stay in contact with the Tower and the quinjet. “I love you _so much_ , baby . . . and I’m _sorry_. Sorry I couldn’t protect you. Sorry I couldn’t _save_ you.”

 

Then I’m falling onto my ass in the snow as Bruce shoves me aside and starts hooking all sorts of weird, compact machines up to Peter’s corpse. His hands are quick and competent, his face focused and grim as he rips open Peter's Cap t-shirt.

 

“Helen, we’re gonna need the Cradle to be ready _STAT_. Even so, I’m not sure it’ll do any . . . _gently_ , guys, okay? And if you value your fucking jobs, _do not_ detach any of this machinery even by accident,” Bruce says flatly as four sturdy-looking people in TAC gear with red crosses strategically sewn on in several places, appear out of nowhere, seemingly, and carrying a stretcher.

 

I watch as they somehow manage to shift Peter’s inert body and the equipment hooked up to him—one of the machines, about the size of a lady’s hat-box and cuffed to Peter’s arm, has a digital readout with a flat blue line and a flat red line; another machine, about the size of a Roku and resting on Peter’s still chest, emits a gentle, rhythmic pulse every few seconds, which makes Peter’s body twitch and shudder—to the stretcher, then begin their slow, careful plod through the snow, to the waiting quinjet. I watch them go and feel . . . nothing.

 

“C’mon, Wade,” Bruce is calling, halfway between me, where I still sit in the snow, and the quinjet, onto which Peter is being loaded. Bruce waves his hand impatiently. “Time is _really_ of the essence!”

 

Before I can think of a response other than laughter—because what time, exactly, does he think we _have_? And what _for_?—one of the TAC-geared medics shouts: “Holy—Dr. Banner, we’ve got a _pulse_!”

 

Time skips again.

 

Next thing I know, Bruce is helping me stagger to the quinjet, my arm slung around his shoulders, his arm slung around my waist, and he's muttering about hypothermia and idiot superheroes. He smells like some understated, _expensive_ aftershave—like something _Stark_ might wear—and hand-sanitizer.

 

“There’s a . . . a _pulse_?” I ask, my throat aching from cold air and hot tears in such dizzying profusion.

 

Bruce smiles his most grimace-y smile as he looks up at me.

 

“Peter’s strong,” he says, simply. “Let’s hope he’s strong _enough_.”

 

 _For what?_ I mean to ask, but don’t get a chance to. This time, however, it’s not because time skips. At least not at first. _At first_ , I just collapse, taking Bruce down with me. The last thing I hear before darkness swallows me in one titanic gulp is Bruce's pained and annoyed voice:

 

“ _Jesus_ —McNamara! Yamagishi! Bring the other stretcher! We’ve got another one down!”

 

Then . . . time skips. But not forward, no. This time, it skips _backwards_ . . . to arguably the _worst_ night of my life—and I survived _months_ in the Weapon X Program—the night when life as I knew it came, and not for the first time, to an abrupt and bitter end.

 

And yet, as bad as it’d been for _me_ , it’d been . . . so horrifically. profoundly _worse_ for my Baby Boy. . . .

 

#

 

_The thing is. . . ._

_Thing_ is _, Wade Wilson sleeps pretty rarely. Maybe eight hours here and there, all-told, over the course of the same amount of days._

_It’s just the way he’s wired, since the Weapon X Program had had its wicked way with his once-gorgeous body. And now . . . aside from being ugly as sin, he’s a partial insomniac, only . . . perhaps it’s_ not _insomnia if he can function at one hundred percent of normal? Maybe even one hundred fifty percent?_

_He doesn’t really think about it too much. Especially tonight. He’s got other, more important and pressing things—as in_ pressing-the-flesh- _things—on his mind, than catching Zzzs. Like a certain masked and webbed Avenger, with a face like a young demi-god and an ass that’d make angels weep in jealous ecstasy._

_{Jeez, you didn’t used to be_ this _gay, bro,} Yellow notes as Wade flops onto his messy bed, naked and fresh from the shower—he still_ hates _baths, but showers? With that body-wash Petey practically_ forced _on him, way back when? Those're pretty awesome, and Wade_ totally _doesn’t mind smelling like shea-butter and oatmeal . . . doesn’t mind that his skin has stopped peeling and flaking off and randomly bleeding, and is now softer and much more supple than it used to be—one hand behind his scarred and hairless head, the other resting briefly on his abdomen, on its way down to his dick. {I mean,_ yeah _, you sleep with men and sometimes take it up the ol’ poop-chute, but . . . between that faggy body-wash and the_ feels _you caught for Spidey, like, the night you first saw him . . . you’ve been_ super-extra-gay _the past_ . . . fuck, the past four years! _What’s the dealie-yo?}_

_White sighs. [Your vocabulary and turn of phrase are abhorrent.]_

_{_ Your face _is abhorrent. Oh, SNAP!}_

_[Neither of us has a face, cretin,] White says, heaving another sigh. [Really, your insults make even less sense than usual.]_

_{_ Your face _makes even less sense than—hey, gay-lord, what’s with spankin’ the ol’ monkey? Aren’t you at last gonna dip your pen in Spidey’s ink? After freakin’_ years _of pining and obsessing?}_

_“Eh. It might happen, it might not.” Wade shrugs, stroking his dick to full hardness. It takes less than a minute. “But one thing I’m_ not _gonna do is show up for our . . . hangout—I don’t even know if this is an actual_ date _, yet—horny as fuck, with my boner tipping over our table because I’m so pumped, ya know?”_

_{So . . . what? You’re gonna rub one, or two, or six out before your little play-date, so as not to offend Spidey’s delicate sensibilities?} Yellow snorts. {When you’re taking dating advice from Ben Stiller movies, you know you’re in dire straits, bro-bro.}_

_[Though I’m loath to do it, I agree with Yellow . . . and nice use of the word_ sensibility _, by the way. I had no idea you knew what that word meant.]_

_{Fuck_ you _, tea-bag. And, hey:_ why _do you have an_ English accent _, anyway? We’re from Regina,_ SASKATCHEWAN _, not Regina,_ England _. Been buggin’ me for_ years _with that shit!}_

_[As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted . . . while amusing, the plot-points of_ There’s Something About Mary _don’t really apply to actual situations. “Rubbing one out,” as Yellow so quaintly puts it, before your dinner-date with Peter isn’t a terribly good idea. Furthermo—oh,_ bloody _Hell,] White sighs yet again as Wade arches up off his bed with a long, low groan, come spattering all over his chest and stomach, not to mention the sheets._

_“Nah, nah . . . I’m list’nin’, buddy . . . whah were ya sayin’?” Wade huffs out while he catches his breath, his hand still sliding up and down his once more hardening dick, fast and efficient. This time, it takes about a full minute before it’s standing straight up, then another thirty seconds before it’s drooling precome on his abdomen as he teases the tip and slit. “_ Tot’lly _list’nin’.”_

_But White has sighed and grumbled his way to the back of Wade’s distracted mind, wrapping himself up in a cocoon of psychic darkness. Yellow tsks._

_{What a pity. He was such a fun guy, too. Anywho! Back to what_ I _was saying. . . .}_

_“Which was?” Wade’s almost there again. It never takes long, really, especially when he opens his spank-bank, which is entirely peopled with Peter-centric moments and memories. Like that one—and only—time he’d seen Peter naked, from the window of the abandoned building across from Peter’s. Peter had clearly just arrived home to his sad, little apartment, and had just started shucking his spidey-suit: mask, then top, then boots, then pants. For a few moments, he’d stood, naked, creamy, and lithe, in the center of his studio apartment, back slightly arched as he stretched. Even from a distance, with the help of his rifle-scope, Wade had been able to see that Peter Parker, a.k.a._ the Spider-Man _, had been more than half-hard._

_After he’d finished stretching and yawning, Peter had scratched his chest, then slid his hand down to his unsurprisingly_ pretty _, rosy cock and, as he strode toward his bathroom—affording Wade a_ perfect _view of his perfect_ ass _—Peter was definitely stroking himself harder. Probably planning to finish the job in the shower. Wade never found out for sure because Peter had closed the bathroom door, and no doubt his shower curtain, behind him._

_Sighing, Wade had put his rifle and his scope away. He’d sat in the dark, brooding, anxious, and confused, until Peter emerged from his bathroom, naked and still slightly damp, to climb immediately into bed, yawning again. The bedside lamp had shortly clicked off, leaving the room in total darkness. But Wade could easily imagine the naked young hero burrowing under his blankets and slipping into a guilt-free, blameless slumber, his sweet, angelic face smooth and smiling just a bit. . . ._

_Wade had, thereafter, jerked off three times in rapid succession in his own dark room—in the abandoned building he’d “borrowed” to stalk his prey—just imagining that beautiful, mutant spider-boy in such a restful repose._

_Then, it’d been another hour—edging on to dawn—before he’d been able to take his leave._

_And even so, his knees’d_ still _been weak-weak-weak as he’d gathered his crap and left that building for good. He wouldn’t see Peter Benjamin Parker,_ the Amazing Spider-Man _, again, in person, for almost two months afterwards. But he thought about the boy often, to the point of distraction. Running into Spider-Man seven weeks after aborting his mission—the first time he’d refused to unalive someone after getting paid to do so. Of course, Kingpin wouldn’t take his damn blood-money_ back _, so Wade’d had to unalive him_ and _most of his high-level goons, but, well, he’d already been on a slippery slope, indeed, to becoming a non-bad guy—was almost an anti-climax, in retrospect._

_Almost._

_But that first night . . . that’d been the beginning of Wade’s reformation. The beginning of his deepest and most abiding obsession. And the end of life as he'd long known it. . . ._

_{Which was,} Yellow crows, snapping Wade back to the present then preening under Wade’s mostly undivided attention. {How gay you’ve gotten—yeah, like_ that _. . . that’s fuckin’_ awesome _! Now, lube up those fingers and stick ‘em in your ass!}_

_Wade snorts, but reaches for his night-table. “Yeah, but_ I’m _the super-extra-gay one.”_

_{Hey, what am_ I _, if not just a gay-ass figment of your gay-ass imagination, pal?}_

_“Good point.” Then Wade’s hissing as his thick, blunt, gel-cool fingers, two of them, push into his body rather roughly. “Oh, fuck, that’s_ good _.”_

_{Probably be better if it was Spidey’s_ dick _. . . .} Yellow’s the one to sigh, now. {Gotta admit, he’s one fine-ass piece of nerdy white chocolate. He’s got a really nice face and smile, and . . . I’m glad we didn’t unalive him, way back when.}_

_“Comin’ from you? That’s—_ fuck _!—practically a declaration of eternal love!”_

_{Eh. What can I say? The gay is catching.}_

_Wade laughs and comes—hard, in both cases._

_It’s around orgasm number ten—really, he has no refractory time to speak of—that he finally comes utterly dry and drops immediately into a seamless, soft darkness that doesn’t let him up from under until eleven hours after he’s supposed to meet Peter at_ Avalon’s _._

_And it only lets him up because his phone rings—_ Peter’s _ringtone,_ Baby Got Back _—loud and vibrating till it nearly falls off the edge of the night-table. Wade catches it, his reflexes wide awake before his conscious mind, and fumbles to answer it. “’Lo? Petey?”_

_“W-Wade?”_

_Peter’s voice is a trembling, broken whisper and Wade . . . Wade is instantly awake and_ up _, striding to his closet for something to throw on. After a nanosecond of hesitation, he chooses the nearest red leather Deadpool suit over his monochrome civvies, because. . . ._

_He suddenly has an_ awful _feeling that he's going to need to be_ Deadpool _for the foreseeable future. Call it a hunch._

_“Talk to me, Baby Boy. What’s goin’ on?” he says, putting the phone on speaker and dropping it on his dresser as he jams his come-streaked right leg into his damn pants. He’s trying to simultaneously think of a way to apologize for missing their . . . hangout—the faint dawn shining in through the window makes it clear that he’s been out for a while—and come up with a legit-sounding reason for_ why _he’d missed it, when Peter makes the strangest sound._

_It’s . . . a_ sob _._

_“Petey?” Wade’s frozen, now, one leg in his pants, one leg out, his dark eyes wide and on the phone. “Where are you? What’s wrong?”_

_Peter takes a shaking breath and exhales his next words in that same tiny whisper. “Wade, I . . . I think I_ killed _him. . . .”_

_“Killed_ who _? Peter,_ where are you? _”_

_“I . . . I don’t know! I think it’s . . . a motel room. . . .”_

_Wade’s moving, once more. In seconds, he’s dressed except for his boots and his mask. “Is there a window or a door you can look out of? Does anything look familiar?”_

_“I . . . I’m on a landline . . . I have to put the phone down to go to the door.” Peter sounds as if he’s asking permission. Wade nods as he laces up his boots._

_“That’s fine, sweetheart, just . . . go quickly, then come back and tell me what you see.”_

_A minute later, Peter is breathing into the phone again. Not a street name, but the motel name—and the number on the motel-room door—that Wade is both surprised and not to find vaguely familiar._

_He knows where it is._

_“Okay, Petey, that’s . . . that’s_ good _, ya done_ real _good for me. Sounds like you’re in Nassau County. Hempstead.”_

_Another shaking breath is sighed into the phone. “Wade . . . how come I’m on_ Long Island _? What . . . what_ happened _last night?”_

Apparently, I made the biggest mistake of my _life_ , last night, Baby Boy, and you're . . . paying one helluva price for that. _In the midst of reaching for his mask, Wade’s eyes close tight on something that wants to be tears because . . . he has a_ hunch _, but it can't be_ real _—_ _can't be right, can it? “You . . . you don’t remember?”_

_“N-no.” A softly hysterical sob. “I remember going to_ Avalon’s _and waiting for you. And waiting and waiting and . . . you never showed up. So I left and . . . I went to this bar and. . . .” Peter’s next breath is more moan than anything else. “That’s where everything goes blank and dark. Except for . . . flashes of . . . of the guy I . . . the_ dead guy _. And I can’t breathe and the room’s spinning and there are hands on me . . . I can’t fight them._ It hurts _, Wade. I feel so weak and fuzzy, and then . . . everything gets so bright and_ sharp _and I can_ move _again. I’m_ strong _, again, and . . . he’s looking up at me ‘cause I’m on the c-ceiling. And . . . he’s naked. And I’m naked. And it hurts whenever I move and . . ._ he knows who I am _. He starts to run for the door and I . . . I land on him and I grab him and shake him and shake him and shake him till there’s a loud_ crack! _And then . . . he stops struggling.” Peter’s breathing is rabbit-fast, now, light and whistling. “His neck looks funny, now and_ he w-won’t wake up _.”_

_“You stay_ right there _, Peter, you hear me? Don’t you leave that room till I get there. And I’mma be there ASAP, Baby Boy.” Wade buckles on his utility belt. He’s already wearing the Ladies, strapped to his back, silent and deadly. “I’mma take care of_ everything _. Just sit tight.”_

_“I don’t wanna stay here, Wade.” Peter’s voice is so tiny and terrified, it makes Wade’s heart hurt more than anything ever has. “What if he wakes up and he’s_ mad _at me? What if he_ hurts me _again? What if they all_ hate _me?”_

They? _Wade wonders, then puts the kibosh on such an extraneous thought. He’ll puzzle it out later. “There’s a bathroom in the motel room, right?”_

_“Y-yes. I took three showers before I called you, but they didn’t help at all,” Peter moans miserably._

_“I want you to wait for me in the bathtub, Pete. You’ll be_ safe _, there. When I get there, I’mma knock shave-and-a-hair-cut three times, so you’ll know it’s me. Don’t let_ anyone else _in.”_

_“O-okay, Wade . . . Wade?”_

_“Yeah, baby?”_

_“Am . . . am I_ b-bad _, now?”_

_Swallowing, Wade grabs his usual bevvy of semi-automatic pistols and utility knives from the floor of his walk-in closet._

_“You’re the_ best _person I know, Peter Parker,” he says softly, his own voice cracking from guilt and strain. “I’ll be there in half an hour even if I have to_ fly _there, baby. Okay?”_

_“Okay.”_

_Moments later, there’s nothing but dial tone. But Wade . . . Wade doesn’t hang up his cellphone until twenty-nine minutes later, when he screeches into the motel parking lot in his stolen Hyundai Accent. He barely remembers to shut the car off and doesn’t remember to shut the driver-side door before he’s jogging to the first floor rooms farthest from the office._

_By the time he finishes knocking on the door—_ shave-and-a-hair-cut _, three times—he’s in a state of high anxiety. Then, a minute later, the door opens slightly, slowly, one topaz-eye peering out at him from a sea of irritated red._

_“Wade?” The door closes again for a moment as Peter undoes the locks, then opens it just wide enough for Peter to slip out into Wade’s waiting arms._

_He smells like cheap motel soap and fear-sweat._

_“I didn’t mean to!” Peter sobs, but softly, quietly. Wade hushes him, nonetheless._

_“I know ya didn’t, baby. You’re so_ good _. My good boy. There’s_ no one _gooder.” Wade buries his face in Peter’s thick, messy hair, kissing it ceaselessly as he moves them into the motel room. He automatically shuts and locks the door behind them after switching the grimy_ **DO NOT DISTURB** _sign to the outside knob._

_#_

_Peter’s exhausted, suffice it to say, and though he won’t sleep in the rumpled bed with its sex-stained sheets and scattered pillows, he soon curls up in the chair by the curtained window, knees tucked under his chin, while_ Wade _. . . ._

_While Wade does the necessary prep-work to disappear one Freddie Alan Mosca so completely, even Saint Peter won’t know where to find his fucking ghost._

_In the end, it’s almost disturbingly easy. Wade doesn’t even have to call in any favors to make short, final work of the very-dead electrician._

_By the time Peter wakes from his deep, but still fitful slumber, it's mid-morning. Wade’s cruising down FDR Drive in a stolen Subaru, on the way back to his place. Freddie Mosca’s remains—all twelve lye-soaked pounds of them—are rotting in the trunk of the Hyundai. Which is rotting at the bottom of a quarry._

_“It wasn’t a dream, was it?” Peter asks blearily, rubbing his swollen, irritated eyes. Wade doesn’t take his own eyes off the road._

_“It is if you_ want _it to be, sweetheart.”_

_Peter sighs and curls against Wade’s side, sniffling when Wade’s right arm wraps around him, protective and possessive._

_“What I want and what I_ deserve _rarely coincide,” Peter murmurs sleepily, his body going limp against Wade’s side. In seconds, his breathing is deep again and, though Wade doesn’t realize it, he’s just heard the last cogent and coherent thing Peter Parker will say for the next six months._

_And it’s almost three fraught, stressful days before he notices the total_ silence _in his own head. Before he realizes that he’s more alone than he’s ever been in his entire life._

 

#

 

When darkness lets me out from under, it’s sudden and alarming.

 

I’m awake and bolting up, flailing and struggling against . . . IVs? Monitors?

 

 _Weapon X?_ I wonder, terrified and numb simultaneously, my struggles increasing as I rip IVs and what-not from my body, willy-nilly. But then I notice. . . .

 

“ _Peter_ ,” I breathe as my struggles stop and I take in the tranquil, still too-thin figure in the bed just a few feet to the right of mine. “Oh, God, Pete!”

 

“He’ll be fine, Wade. Just fine.”

 

Startled, I whip my head to my left to see Bruce Banner sitting at my bedside, looking tired and older than I remember, his hair almost as much salt as it is pepper. He’s dressed in his dowdy scientist clothes and lab coat. His glasses are slightly crooked on his clean-shaven face.

 

“You’ve been out for two days,” he volunteers, smiling a little. “We didn’t even sedate you or anything, you just . . . slept. So we kept an IV of nutrients going and hooked you up to monitors just in case, but . . . you’ve been fine, too. Steady and strong.”

 

“Fuck _me_ , what about _Petey_?” I demand, looking back over at my sleeping boy. “Is he . . . is he gonna be okay?”

 

“Physically? He’ll be fine in a couple weeks, with some rest, steady meals, and supplements. Hell, he’s already doing _much_ better. He’s been awake, on and off for the past day, and asking about _you_. Physically he’s on the mend. Mentally? Emotionally?” Bruce makes a face when I glance at him. “I’m not that kinda doctor, Wade. But my best guess is that Peter’s had . . . a long, hard road since last we saw him. You both have. And you’d both probably  _benefit_ from talking with one of the Initiative’s psychiatrists.”

 

“Fuck _that_ , Mean Green!” I snort and laugh. Bruce’s eyebrows shoot up.

 

“So, what you’re saying is, you _like_ Peter the way he’s been? Suffering the extended aftermath of a sexual assault and the resulting self-defense murder of the assailant? Having to bury the assault, the murder, and the disposal of the body under a conspiracy/cover-up that _you’ve been perpetuating_ , instead of coming to _us_ for help and justice? Letting Peter suffer increasingly from fugue-states, memory loss, disorientation, partial amnesia, anxiety and panic, depression, and growing psychosis?”

 

My laugh cuts off like my throat’s been cut. “He . . . he wasn’t _that_ bad, Doc,” I insist, though my own damn reason and common sense have me believing otherwise.

 

“According to you, he wandered out into the snow last Friday, wearing nothing but his spidey-suit—sans mask—and crawled up on a rooftop to die.” Bruce blinks patiently while I stammer, then finally holds up his hand and shakes his head. There’s a wedding ring on his ring finger and I roll my eyes.

 

“So. Stark finally conned you into marryin' him, I see.”

 

Bruce’s lips twitch in what’s almost a smile as he looks at his wedding band and wiggles his fingers. “Eh. He made some . . . fairly _convincing_ arguments for us tying the knot, yes.” And damned if Bruce doesn’t flush miles below that olive complexion.

 

“ _Ugh_.” I shudder in complete revulsion. “Well. Better you than me. Good luck with that, Doc. Me and Petey’ll be outta you guys’ hair in—”

 

“ _Wade_.”

 

Forget turning my head, I’m up and out of my bed, buck-naked and stumbling my way to _Peter’s_ bed, my eyes glued to that bright, clear, topaz-gaze. And when I reach Peter, he smiles a tired, but happy smile.

 

“Heyya, Baby Boy!” I lean forward on his bed, placing a gentle kiss between his eyebrows. For which I receive a glowing, beaming grin in return. “How ya doin'?”

 

“’M tired,” he yawns, still grinning, though. “Feel weak and nauseas. Bruce says ‘m on antibiotics for the pneumonia, and that ‘m gonna feel yucky for at least the next eight days.”

 

There's that fucking number, again. Sweet-fucking- _Jeebus_ , save me and the boy I love from the number _eight_. “ _Eight days,_ huh? Jeez, what a _jerk_!” I exclaim and hear Bruce snort behind me. A few moments after that, the door to the room opens near-silently, then closes.

 

We’re alone.

 

With a sigh of relief, I shove back the covers and slide into bed with Peter, who shuffles his body painstakingly to the right to make room.

 

“Nah, don’t haveta _move_ , baby. I like you _just_ _where_ you are: close to _me_ ,” I murmur, pulling Peter closer and kissing his temple. He hums happily as I tug the covers up over us both. Unlike me, Peter’s wearing a hospital gown with tiny little Iron-Man and War-Machine figures on them.

 

I roll my eyes and lay a soft kiss on the crown of Peter’s head, in hair that smells of nothing but cleanliness and hospital soap.

 

For a while, Peter simply rests in my arms with the occasional contented sigh. I find myself nodding off to the steady, even, _clear_ sound of his easy breathing. And then. . . .

 

“I heard what Bruce said before, Wade,” Peter says out of nowhere, and just like that I’m _awake_ again.

 

“Baby Boy—”

 

“He’s _right_ , y’know?” Peter yawns, then turns his head to look up at me. I’m already looking down at _him_. Then Peter smiles and reaches up to brush his fingers—neither too cold _nor_ too hot—down my scarred cheek. “You’re so _soft_ ,” he murmurs wonderingly and I grin.

 

“Not exactly what a big Daddy like myself wants to hear from the cute twink in his bed, but. . . .”

 

“Silly.” Peter cups my face, turning it more fully toward his own for a kiss that tastes like tapioca pudding and hot chocolate. In short order, I’m doing my damnedest to devour Peter lips first. I hold Peter tighter against me while he does his best to pull me on top of him, moaning and clutching at my shoulders with fingers that bite and leave bruises, no doubt.

 

“ _Jesus_ , Petey,” I breathe in the crook of Peter’s neck, settling between his spread legs. His right leg is pinned under _my_  left, but his left? That wraps around my thigh, sliding up toward my hip. "Been wantin' this for _so long, baby_. . . ."

 

"Me, too, Wade . . . oh, _Wade_. . . ."

 

And I’m already hard, no surprise there, but Peter’s . . . definitely _not_. And after a few minutes of grinding aggressively, pointedly against Peter’s still-flaccid dick—I’d long since shoved up the stupid hospital gown for some skin-on-skin contact—I brace my body up on one arm and gaze down at Peter while trying to catch my breath. Peter, meanwhile, stares up at me sadly, knowingly, apologetically.

 

“ _Bruce was right_ ,” he says plainly, self-deprecatingly, but firmly, his wide eyes narrowed in their focus on my face. "I'm a fucking mess, and . . . I think for now . . . _here's_ where I need to be. For _all_ our sakes." He reaches up to run his gentle fingers down my cheek again, not even stopping when my tears wet his fingers. Though he _does_ tsk.

 

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asks, smiling a tender, reassuring smile. _He's_ reassuring _me_ , and I sniff, unwillingly warmed by that _sweetheart_ , and look down at Peter’s covered chest, shaking my head. I don’t deserve the smile or the reassurance. Don’t deserve to see someone as amazing and beautiful as _Peter Parker_ , looking at _me_ like I hung the moon and stars.

 

“Everything, Petey. Just . . . _everything_. I messed up _so bad_. It’s _all_ my fault—what happened to you and this past six, shit-show months . . . I just made mistake after mistake and things got worse and _worse_ for you, and now . . . I finally get you to the _one_ place they can maybe _help_ _you_ , and the first thing I try to do is drag us outta here while you’re still fuckin’ _sick_!”

 

Peter chuckles, his thumb brushing across my lips. “You’ve been protecting me and caring for me all by your lonesome for so long, it’s become a habit. And those’re hard to break,” he murmurs fondly. I shift a little, then settle on my back next to Peter again, closing my arms tight around him when he snuggles against me. My dick’s still tenting out the covers, but visibly starting to play dead even as I watch.

 

“You know why I missed our date, that night, Peter?”

 

“Wade . . . _don't_ —”

 

“I missed it because I was _drained_ after jerkin’ off over you about a _thousand_ times in one hour, and I passed out till you called the next morning,” I grit out. “ _That_ was why I didn’t show up at _Avalon’s_. That was why you . . . I dunno . . . got bored and wandered off to that bar, and that fuckin’ _freak_ slipped ya somethin’ and dragged you to that motel. That’s why. . . .”

 

Peter doesn’t say anything for long minutes, but doesn’t stop snuggling against me. If anything, he snuggles _closer_ , clinging to my side like a limpet.

 

“Wade . . . do you know _why_ I _went_ to that bar?”

 

Frowning, I kiss Peter’s crown again, until all I can smell is hypo-allergenic clean, and all I can see is the restful darkness of his thick hair. “’Cause you thought I blew off our date and were pissed off? And you just—I dunno, wanted to have a few drinks and blow off some steam?”

 

“I went to that bar because I was _furious_ that, after years of flirting and innuendo and drama between us, we were _both_ finally in a place to do something about the . . . _spark_ between us. And then, not only do you _not_ show up for our first date, but you don’t _call or text_ , either.” Peter snorts ruefully. “And _I_ certainly wasn’t gonna call _you_. My pride was wounded and . . . well, I went to this dive-y bar in a not-so-nice neighborhood to . . . well, to pick up someone to take home. Because drunken, unsatisfying sex with a stranger and possibly contracting VD’d show _you_ , right?” Another snort. “Yeah, _right_. It made sense the drunker I got, anyway. I think I even remember talking with . . . with _him_ . . . a little bit. But then everything goes dark, and the _next_ thing I know . . . the next thing I _know_ , I’m face-down in a grimy pillow and someone’s _holding me down_ and, and . . . I can’t even scream because my voice won’t work right. . . .”

 

Peter trails off heaving another sigh, shaky and upset. I can only hold him tighter.

 

“I think I even only remember _that_ bit because it h-hurt so much when he . . . and I was so _frightened_. So _weak_. Things that, since I got my spidey-powers, I’m just not used to feeling or being.” Peter stops speaking for a couple seconds, his fingers drumming lightly on my sternum. “Everything else is pretty dicey, till . . . till I broke his neck. _That’s_ , uh . . . one nightmare-kaleidoscope I’ll _never_ forget. Nor should I.”

 

“You weren’t in your right mind, Pete. You were drugged and scared and _hurt_ —”

 

“I was also an _Avenger_ , Wade. We’re trained to incapacitate instead of maiming or killing. Those are options of last resort, and that’s ingrained so deeply, that even with everything that happened . . . Freddie Mosca should still be alive. Serving a prison sentence, maybe, but alive. And he's _not_. And that's something I'll have to live with forever.”

 

“At no point is any of this your fault, Peter Parker,” I say intently, urgently, but knowing Peter won’t believe me. May _never_ believe me.

 

“So whose fault _is_ it? _Yours_?” Peter laughs a brittle laugh that sounds more like a sob.

 

“Maybe.” I bite my lip. “Probably. But I think it’s _Freddie Mosca’s_ fault, most of all. I stood you up by _accident_. _You_ accidentally caught the wrong guy’s attention. And _that guy purposely_ drugged you and raped you. If anyone deserves the lion’s share of the blame—could’ve prevented this whole mess simply by not being a complete and utter shit-heels, it was Freddie Mosca. Not _me_. _Not_ you.”

 

Silence. For a _long_ time. Peter finally takes a shivering breath a few minutes after he’s all but soaked my scarred chest with his tears.

 

“If it’s not _my_ fault . . . then why does it _hurt_ so bad?” he asks in that scared, familiar, hoarse whisper. “Why am I so _scared_ all the time? Why is it I only feel safe when I’m near you? Why do I wish Freddie Mosca had cut my throat instead of raped me? _Why does just_ existing _every day hurt so much, now?_ ”

 

“I dunno, Peter. I don’t . . . I don’t have any answers. Only things I was ever good at was cookin’ and unalivin’. And neither of those things are any kinda use to you, now.” I swallow around my broken, battered heart. “I can’t help ya, kiddo, as much as it _kills_ me to say it. But I think that here, in the Tower, are people who _can_ help you. Help you not be scared, help you not hurt all the time, help you feel safe and hopeful and _happy_ again. I know that sounds like a tall order, but if anyone _can_ do it . . . it’s the people working in the Avengers Initiative.”

 

Peter sighs again. “Maybe . . . maybe you’re right, Wade. Maybe they _can_ help. But you’re _wrong_ about one thing.” He sits up to look into my eyes, his own once more in seas of irritated red, his lashes sparkling with tears. “Even at my foggiest and craziest . . . even when I couldn’t think past the fear and the panic and the memories of what’d _happened_ to me . . . and what I’d _done_ . . . even then, I fought. I struggled. I clawed my way back home. Back to _you_. Sometimes I’d get close and you’d slip away, but . . . I never gave up. I could hear your voice and feel how much you cared. And I kept swimming toward the beach where you stood, no matter how strong the tide and how far the shore. _I didn’t give up_. I refused to. Not because I’m such a strong-willed, resilient guy, but . . . because I couldn’t bear to remain _apart_ from you. I knew that if I could be where _you_ were . . . then eventually, _everything_ would be okay, again.” Peter bites his bottom lip, his gaze lowering for a few moments before meeting mine again. “You’re the first thing I’ve believed in since . . . maybe since my parents died. P-please tell me I’m not wrong for that?”

 

I take Peter’s tear-wet face in both of my rough palms and lean up to kiss his fluttering eyelids, then the tip of his nose, then his lips. Peter whimpers into the kiss rather desperately.

 

“You’re _mine_ , Baby Boy. _Mine_ , and I _love_ ya. And I’ll do _whatever it takes_ , you hear me? I’ll _wait_ for you however _long_ it takes. Go to therapy with ya. Or by myself, whatever’s necessary. I’ll stand by your side for the rest of our lives. I will _always_ look after you and protect you and take care of you. Even when you think you’re too strong and bad-ass to need ol’ Deadpool’s help.” I punctuate this with a slobbery, smacking kiss to his chin and Peter giggles. “ _Even then_. And I’ll be there while you get better and better. I’ll be there through every setback, too, no matter how big or small. And _Odin help_ the next asshole who tries to get between us, because I may be reformed, but I’m still the unchallenged _champeen_ of unalivin’, and I didn’t get that title by lettin’ the big shit slide.”

 

Peter smiles into our next kiss, tremulous but hopeful. “I dunno if . . . Bruce says that the, um . . . _impotence_ is temporary. And more psychosomatic a symptom than physical. That _physically_ , there’s nothing wrong with me. So, at this point, I’m literally just too crazy and scared to get hard. The end. You deserve _better_ than that, Wade. I really _won't_ think less of you if you decide to run for the hills before you get in any deeper.”

 

“I'm _already_ in the deep-end and livin' there for keeps. Happily. And no, it's  _not_ the end, Pete. I deserve _whateeeeeever_ I want. And I want _you_.” I nuzzle Peter’s nose in a way that Yellow would’ve protested, once upon a time . . . then I shove away that melancholy thought because Peter’s _safe_ and _warm_ and _in my arms_ . . . everything else will eventually take care of itself, for better or worse. “I _love_ you.”

 

“I love _you_ , Wade. And I . . . I _promise_ I’ll get _better_. _For you_ ,” Peter swears rather grimly, but with his old determination. “As fast as I can.”

 

“Get better for _you_ , Baby Boy. Take care of you _for_ _you_.”

 

Peter smiles wider, leaning back to look at me wryly. “We _both_ know I’m a self-sacrificing martyr, Wade. I only do shit for _other_ _people_. So . . . let me do _this_ for _you_. Let me get _well_ for you. Let me someday, hopefully soon, _give_ myself to you, like I’ve been _wanting_ to do since . . . practically the night we met.”

 

“Petey,” I say, pausing to remember the sweet boy standing naked in his apartment, innocently lovely and unknowingly sensual. Simply the most _gorgeous_ sight I’d ever seen . . . until _now_ , that is. _Peter_ , as he _is now_ , on the cusp of becoming stronger than twice-forged _steel_ , is the most wonderful, _beautiful_ thing I could ever hope to call _mine_. “What could I _ever_ possibly give you that equals all _that_?”

 

That smile gentles into something that takes my breath away. Makes my heart beat ridiculously fast from its new resting place behind my fucking larynx. “Well, for starters, you can _forgive_ yourself. For _me_ , if not for _you_ , and . . . maybe _I_ can try to do the same . . . for you.”

 

I search Peter’s unguarded, anxious gaze for about two seconds before pulling him back into my arms. Peter goes with a soft, yearning noise and I hold him tight-tight-tight against my chest, kissing whatever bits of him are within reach of my lips.

 

“Got yourself a _deal_ , Baby Boy . . . but you’d _better_ keep up your end of it, or I’ll haveta _spank_ ya.”

 

It just slips out and I freeze, half-expecting Peter to shudder or quail. But Peter merely chuckles once more, his body molding itself to my side with a sleepy sigh.

 

“Hmm . . . sounds more like a _reward_ than a punishment, to me.”

 

“Oh, r-really?” _Brave, amazing,_ lovely _boy_. . . .

 

“Mm.”

 

“Then you’ll haveta gimme a hint as to what sorta threat'd put the fear of _Wade_ into ya—get ya chastened, and back on the straight and narrow, as it were.”

 

“Well . . . I’ve got three words for you, DP,” Peter exhales on the back of a smug laugh. “ _Golden. Girls._ Marathon.”

 

“ _OUCH_! Below the belt!” I wince as the full horror of having lost my heart to a _total_ Philistine unrolls itself upon me. “I can’t _believe_ you _went_ _there_ , Pete! _Ugh_! Is it too late to trade _you_ in for _Johnny Storm_?”

 

Peter snorts with laughter, his snorfling giggles not tapering off until he’s more asleep than awake. By which time, my _mostly_ -fake offense has passed, and I’ve even cracked a small smile.

 

#

 

By the time Bruce Banner pokes his head into Peter and Wade’s room in the hospital wing of the Tower, almost exactly ninety minutes after he’d left, both Peter and Wade are sound asleep in each other’s arms . . . looking, for the first time in the good doctor’s lengthy experience, perfectly at peace.

 

And unutterably _right_ together.

 

So, smiling his small, absent smile, he checks Peter’s vitals—still steady—then quietly makes his way to the door with one measuring glance back at the sleeping couple.

 

 _They’re gonna be alright_ , he thinks with sudden yet towering certainty. _Both of them. And not too far in the future, either._

 

He turns the dimmer switch near the doorpost down by half then carefully pulls the heavy, but easily-swinging door of the darkened room shut behind him. Then he’s strolling through the hospital wing, toward Tony’s private elevator, and thence their floor of the Tower. Where his eccentric, but indulgent husband’s no doubt holding yet another _lavish_ dinner for him—probably shawarma, with a side of fries and onions rings, and some _Mountain Dew_ to wash it all down—and waiting on tenterhooks for some _good news,_ at last.

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 69 and 70 from Spideypool-Prompts on Tumblr:
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> _Prompt 70: Peter accidentally killing someone and Wade dealing with Peter’s emotional fallout._
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> _Prompt 69: “Lie to me,” Peter whispered. “I love you,” Wade replied._
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> [Follow me on Tumblr](https://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com/)!


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